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Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Simplifying Life

I am back from a trip to Vegas for Easter with my family. Weather was perfect and we had such an awesome time. Like most Italian families my trip home included a lot of eating, loud talking and laughter. But mostly a lot of eating- and the food was delicious. When we first got there my mom made us a nice Paleo meal which included rosemary chicken, veggies and mashed sweet potatoes. YUM. The rest of the weekend included some of the best sushi I have had, pizza, In n Out, homemade french toast and lots of desserts. It was a really great time and it was nice to let go and eat whatever I wanted. Needless to say it has been tough getting back on track this week. I went grocery shopping today so we have no excuse of not starting back with Paleo. While on pinterest I saw this cool picture and wanted to share it:

I really like the bottom part where it says "Live-don't beat yourself up-enjoy it". I have been practicing some self positivity so I will not beat myself up over the food I ate and lack of working out this weekend because I enjoyed the hell out of it. But I am really excited to get back in my kitchen and make some meals. I have no idea what is for dinner tonight so I should probably get on that when I finish this post. I also like how the plate is on this picture- a small amount of meat and tons of veggies. I think a lot of people think that all you do is eat meat when you eat Paleo and that just is not true. I was even considering having a "meatless" day once a week for Matt and I where we just eat a lot of veggies. Why? Because I think it would be beneficial to eat tons of veggies one day and also because if you think back to a hunter gatherer lifestyle they did not always have the luxury of eating meat. If a hunt was unsuccessful they did not have meat that day or week. I also want to do some more research on intermittent fasting. My hubby wrote a good post on it that you can find Here.

While looking back on my blog to find that post I just realized that it has been exactly ONE YEAR since the beginning of this blog and the beginning of my journey into eating healthy. Wow. A whole year...looking back on this past year I recognize that I have had my ups and downs with sticking to Paleo. I can't imagine what I would feel like if I had stayed strict for the entire year- especially in the midst of a 60 day challenge that it is time to admit I failed. That is how life is though. You have your ups, you have your downs but you keep going always trying to do better. I can say these things for sure about this past year.

In this past year I...

Have become MUCH better at cooking then I ever imagined. A year ago I was afraid to touch raw chicken and now I can make meals I only dreamed of making before

Have eaten more vegetables in this past year than I have ever eaten in 365 days in my entire life

Feel confident in my cooking ability and have tried out tons of new ingredients

Feel healthier overall

Have made HUGE improvements in the gym

Learned a lot about nutrition

Have become an active participant in my health- instead of just eating what ever is fast or easy

Have stuck to this lifestyle because I truly believe it makes happier, healthier people

Have proven to myself this is not a "fad diet" it is a healthier way of being

Have learned that it's okay to not always eat perfectly- I am human and there are things that are not Paleo that I enjoy eating and that is OKAY

Have learned that a passion of mine is to spread healthy living to others

Why is the title of this post "Simplifying Life"? Well now after realizing it is the year anniversary of this blog it only brings more meaning to my original intent of this post. I am feeling the urge to purge. No- not throw up, but to purge my life of the "junk" that I feel is becoming a little overwhelming. I want to go on a mental, physical and practical purge. I want to get rid of all the junk that seems to be over running our small apartment. We have too many clothes. We have too many things we do not need nor do we use. We have too much clutter- and I want to donate all of these things we do not need or use to someone who may need and use it.

I also want to purge my life of negativity. Now I am pretty lucky in the fact that I really do not have that much negativity to begin with but it can't hurt to think about my relationships that I have and decide if they are positive ones or negative ones. My hubby and I have recently been going to church. We both grew up in odd religious situations. My family did not belong to a church and I went to church with friends every once in a while. My hubby had some negative experiences with church and when we met in college we both agreed that it wasn't that big of a deal. We both had our ideas on organized religion and our questions about religion in general. Without going into too much detail about our history with religion for some reason at around the exact same time this past year we decided that we wanted more. We both just knew we needed more of a spiritual presence in our life and it took us quite a long time but we found a church we love and we are newbies in the sense of finally practicing some sort of religion. This new experience has caused me to think a lot about becoming a better person. In this train of thought it has caused me to think a lot about living simpler lives. Being grateful for what we have and not concentrating on what we do not. Giving unconditionally to others that are in need. Trying to always treat others with love and kindness.

I think in order to truly begin this journey of living simpler we should "kick it off" with literally gathering all of the things we do not need and giving them to charity. I will update on how this goes and post some recipes this week since we will finally be eating healthy again!